Vicki DaSilva
Deez Nuts (20″ x 12″)
Printed on premium 250 gsm glossy photo paper, mounted on 4-ply cotton rag mat board, and framed in a sleek black lacquer shadowbox. The custom “electric blue” rails add a modern, dynamic touch
$1000 – purchase form below 👇🏼👇🏽👇🏿
Artist Bio
Vicki DaSilva lives and works in Inverness, Nova Scotia, Canada. She has been creating time-exposure photographs at night, or in the dark, using lamps as drawing tools since she was an art student in 1980. Her lifelong art photographic practice includes text-based light graffiti works, urban and rural light painting landscapes and light tartans that are created with tube lamps directly patterned with colour filters.
Vicki’s work has been featured in solo and group exhibitions internationally, is included in private and public collections, and has been published in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, HuffPost, The Guardian, Paper Magazine and PhotoEd Magazine among many others.
This light graffiti photograph was created at an abandoned Burger King in Allentown, Pennsylvania in November 2015. The term ‘deez nuts’ was first used in a track by Dr. Dre on his 1992 album the Chronic, and was referenced for many years in the hip-hop community. In 2015 WelvenDaGreat posted a video to Instagram using the term and it went viral. Also in 2015, 15-year-old Brady Olson registered Deez Nuts as a US presidential candidate, bringing the term and meme to the general public. Deez Nuts scored third in public polls after Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.
Using a battery-powered round fluorescent tube lamp to draw the text and mimic spray-painted bubble letters known as throwies, and an eight-foot fluorescent tube lamp to create the red, white and blue pattern, I was referencing the meme and the 2016 US presidential election. This image is a single-frame time exposure digital photograph. This piece was an inspiration for the White House series I made in April 2017.
This method of working allows me to access almost any location, as it is an ephemeral act created at night that exists and materializes only for the camera. It lends itself to site-specific work, art intervention, and protest art. The drawing element is critical for me. I do not use any post-production digital imaging in my work. The process involves a performative aspect as a direct action. I especially like the way my practice acts as a catalyst to interact with the public spontaneously.
Production sponsored by Akasha Art Projects. There are only 10 available, and purchasers will be contacted with pick-up time at Akasha Art Projects, 204D Carlton Street in Toronto.
Limited Edition Sponsor:
